Woke-Bashing of the Week: MAGA’s war on cyclists moves up a gear
“… just a classic feature of the autocratic playbook. They pick scapegoats and go after them. That has absolutely nothing to do with safety.”
Cyclists have a hard enough time as it is. Between dodging potholes and enduring the occasional middle finger from motorists, we now apparently must contend with being branded woke by America’s car-obsessed MAGA brigade.
Enter Sean Duffy, Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, former Fox News host and enthusiastic culture warrior. Duffy has made dismantling what he calls ‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies a priority, targeting Biden-era initiatives, bike infrastructure and university research grants as supposedly wasteful spending.
“Remember when Biden and Boot-edge-edge used YOUR MONEY for DEI bike lanes and climate change? THAT’S OVER,” Duffy posted on X in July, claiming he had redirected $1.73 billion in federal transportation grants away from “Biden-era DEI pet projects” towards roads, bridges and ports.
His department has also restricted funding for speed cameras and pedestrian safety projects, while dismissing investment in cycling infrastructure as “crap” and “DEI pet projects” associated with his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg.
Apparently, even making roads safer for people who don’t drive has become a culture-war offence.
Duffy’s priorities have already attracted criticism. Earlier this year, he faced accusations of being spectacularly out of touch after announcing The Great American Road Trip, a reality TV show following his family on a seven-month journey across the country by van, amid transportation crises and rising fuel prices.
“How much more unfocused, unserious, and out of touch can you be?” asked Chasten Buttigieg, husband of the former transportation secretary.
But the concerns go beyond tone-deaf television appearances. Critics argue Duffy is jeopardising road safety by allowing MAGA ideology to dictate transport policy.
Barbara McCann, who worked on road safety policy at the US Department of Transportation for more than a decade, has warned the administration’s attacks on cycling infrastructure risk sidelining evidence-based approaches to preventing deaths and injuries.
“You pick someone who’s vulnerable and attack them,” McCann told the Guardian. “They decided that bicyclists are vulnerable and that they could use that as a political wedge. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with actual safety.”
Duffy insists his department remains committed to safer roads and reducing fatalities. Yet critics fear that decades of road-safety evidence are being sacrificed to a political agenda that treats cyclists, pedestrians and climate-friendly transport as ideological enemies rather than legitimate parts of the transport system.
McCann also sees parallels between the administration’s attacks on bike lanes and its crackdown on immigrant truck drivers. Both, she argues, reflect an effort to assert dominance over vulnerable groups.
“That’s just a classic feature of the autocratic playbook,” she said. “They pick scapegoats and go after them. That has absolutely nothing to do with safety.”
As a cyclist, I know that sharing roads with motorists can be challenging enough without politicians actively turning cycling into a culture-war target. Potholes, dangerous junctions and inconsiderate driving are problems that need practical solutions, not partisan point-scoring.
When making roads safer becomes ‘woke,’ it’s clear that MAGA’s culture warriors have lost sight of common sense, leaving cyclists in the firing line of a political crusade against progress.
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